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Peter Green (tr.). Homer, The Iliad: A New Translation. Oakland: The University of California Press, 2015. Pp. 592. $29.95. ISBN 978-0-520-28141-7.
Among the oldest extant works of Western literature, the Iliad is a timeless epic of great warriors trapped between their own heroic pride and the arbitrary decisions of fate and the gods. Renowned classical scholar and translator Peter Green captures all the surging thunder of the Iliad for a new generation of readers. The introduction itself is a major achievement. Green also provides a detailed synopsis of each book, a useful glossary, and explanatory notes throughout for puzzling in-text items. The book also includes a select bibliography for those wishing to learn more about Homer and Greek epic, as well as a wide-ranging index of events in order of occurrence and an alphabetically ordered selection of topics.
From the beginning of book 1, this translation is as remarkably close in English as one can get to the original Greek rhythms, word order, and style of the original:
Wrath, goddess, sing of Achilles Peleus's son's
calamitous wrath, which hit the Achaians with countless ills-
many the valiant souls it saw off down to Hades,
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